Initial impressions

[spaceboy]

the nice folks at Amazon shipped the game yesterday and I got it today.  Not bad for free delivery!

All I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW.   Wow this is one big map, Wow there's a lot to do, Wow I need to get a hang of the controls.

I'm not quite the super lethal spy I'm supposed to be yet.  It takes some getting used to the grapple and there's no aiming down the sights which kind of stinks. (but there is over the shoulder for most guns and scope view for scoped rifles)  This is not a "simulation" game by any means, this is a romp/chaos/crazy stuff game.  But I've driven a bunch of vehicles, flew 3 different helicopters, hijacking one of them midair, I've driven a speedboat to different parts of the island.  I'm just scratching the surface here.

I think the controls are a bit wonky but once I get used to them they'll be fine.  It's a bit like a kid in a candy store though.  So much to do, I don't know what to do.  So I went ahead and did another mission, but then cruised around investigating and working on my grapple controls.  Flew a heli really high then jumped out.

I can tell I'm really going to like it, but it's almost overwhelming at first.  I gotta get some sleep now.  More to tell as I play more...

edited: info about aiming

[JRD]

Wow space... that`s great!!
I can almost picture you typing it really fast as your brain still dealing with the whole lot of information that has just been delivered to you...  ;D ;D ;D

Looking forward to an early review/first impressions!!!  8)

[Art Blade]

cool, space :) I think I'll have to wait another week or so until I'll get it. I am looking forward to reading more from you until then :)

[spaceboy]

here are some more random thoughts

- there is an excellent feature called.......coordinates!  So when you look at your map you see the X and Y coordinates of where you are.  Will help sharing what we find much easier.

- seems to be no stealth.  Yes you can sneak up or surprise the baddies, but the goal is to create chaos to earn points and money, so destruction is your goal. 

- this is not a game for gun afficionados.  If you want to snipe or really get into using different guns with "realistic" ballistics, sounds, and feels etc.  This is not the game.  There is of course alot of shooting, but it's more about being creative, using vehicles, using your grapple, etc. 

- lots and lots of vehicles, boats, planes, choppers, motorbikes, cars and trucks of all types.

- 3 factions to w@&k with - I've only done 1 mission for one of them so I don't know how it plays out when I start mixing it up with the others.  The one I did, me and a few of the faction dudes infiltrated a harbor and took it over.  It was cool to run in with some AI backup.  The first two introductory missions were solo.

-lots of varied terrain and AI (both faction and citizen) in the cities, roads, and waterways.

-lots of cool easter eggs to find - there is a hot air balloon somewhere, a mystery island that is fashioined after the "Lost" TV show - you fly near it and get shot down apparently

-tons of options to do what you want - after my harbor mission I hopped in a little traffic chopper and flew to a different city, landed on top of a building and then jumped off, carjacked a car, etc. etc.

-the story is good so far, but pretty standard of course.  I can't wait to get into more missions now, but like I also want to get some faster air travel and go to the top of the mountains and see what I find, base jump, etc. etc. etc.

-the grapple is such a part of your fighting and getting around you have to adapt your normal gameplay to incorporate it as much as possible.  I was getting better at aiming it, and it made getting around and fighting much easier.

-excellent destruction and damage modelling especially with such a big world.

-this is FC2 meets FUEL meets GTA  I guess.

fun fun fun - chaos is the rule!

[JRD]

-tons of options to do what you want - after my harbor mission I hopped in a little traffic chopper and flew to a different city, landed on top of a building and then jumped off, carjacked a car, etc. etc.

What can you do when not on a mission? Are there any collectibles like in FC2/AC2/FUEL? or mini games as in GTA?

[spaceboy]

I know there are races to earn money.  I'm not sure what else.  Of course I haven't yet read the manual  :-[  I will though.  For sure what you will need to do to unlock some new missions is to make "chaos" by destroying things.  This is probably not for every mission and depends on how much destruction you do in-mission.   

Each area you are in will show a % completed/destroyed. On the first mission I jumped into an AA gun and pummeled the facilties radar dishes, gas tanks, silos, bad guys, etc.  Then on the other side of the facility there were two guys manning mini-guns and typically you'd have to try to snipe them, or maybe chuck a grenade behind them, or move up using cover.  Well in JC2 I did throw a grenade but then decided to grapple to the wall below and to the side of them, grapple up to the railing, jump over and shoot them.  Next I detached the mini-gun from its mount and laid waste to this whole side of the facility including it's baddies and AA guns trying to shoot my evac chopper out of the sky.  This included a few military police vehicles crusing at me which exploded and crashed in glorious fashion.  When I was through I grappled up to my evac and the mission ended.  8)

[PZ]

Excellent reads, space!  :-X

[spaceboy]

Thanks PZ.  The thing is, to me at least, that the core gameplay combo of grapple and parachute are so different from other games that I died a few times trying to be creative with it.  This of course leads to a better mastery of the controls so that's ok.  You literally can grapple just about anything which is nice because it opens up a ton of opportunities. 

I suppose you could liken the grapple and chute to Batman's grapple and cape, but Batman doesn't have guns, and the grapple only worked on specific areas.  Also, you had to equip it.

It's funny to start finding yourself using it smarter.  I took a boat out to a small island and left it "parked" a little ways out, swam to the island.  By the time I was going to go back to it a medium sized boat that looked like it would contain baddies had checked out my boat and then moved on, but they were trolling near the shore line.  I'd surely be seen if I swam out to my boat, so I just grappled to it, skimming across the water, jumped in and took off.

Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to getting back to Panau tonight!  ;D

[PZ]

This one really sounds like something that should be lots of fun  :)  :-X

[Art Blade]

I believe so, yes  :) Good read, space :)  :-X

[spaceboy]

oops - slight correction on aiming...

While you can't aim "down the sights" you can go into aiming mode (R3 on PS3).  For most guns this means it zooms into an over the shoulder view which gives you a closer look obviously.  On my Bullseye Assault Rifle and I assume any other gun with a scope you zoom into a scoped view similar to FC2 and the zoom is quite nice.

I missed this because many shooters it's L1 to aim.  There is customization available for your controls too.  In fact the default is R2 to fire your gun  (sorry non PS3 guys this may not make sense) and R1 to run or roll.  Likewise L2 is to throw explosives or fire your secondary weapon (you can dual wield handguns if you so choose) and L1 is to use your grapple hook.   I was able to switch this whole schema (the 1s and 2s switched) because almost all shooters use R1 to shoot.  The rest works out just fine.

Additional info:  You can carry essentially 6 weapons (I'm including the grapple hook since it can be used not only for pulling enemies but Rico uses it like a whip when you hit the melee button). The other 5 are 2 handheld guns, 1 two handed gun like a rifle, and 2 kinds of explosives.

Sorry about any confusion on the aiming.  And now...back to Panau.  8)

[fragger]

Thanks for the great reads so far, space :-X :-X

Glad you're enjoying it mate, sounds like heaps of fun :)

[Art Blade]

Oh man, I was wondering if I'd gone crazy (yeah, yeah, alright, I got it... hehe) because this topic appeared under "unread" and had two pages. Next thing I see after clicking it, is the old first post, I used the browser's back button and saw "90 replies" (I didn't see "1 views") so I went in again, again space's old first post, so I clicked on "page 2" and -- nothing. Again post #1. Then I realised the board is called JC2 rather than other games...

THANKS, PZ   :-X (About time too, hehehe  ;D )

[PZ]

I saw with horror that there were 18 pages of posts this morning!  As I worked through them I read a post by spaceboy indicating that we might consider creating a board for it - I must have initially missed that post completely - my apologies, space!  :-[

On another topic, I'm open to starting any new game boards the OWG membership desires - there is no practical limit to what we can create.  If they end up being heavily used, we keep them in the navigation menu, and if not, they can still exist in the list of forums.

So, if anyone has recommended creating a board and the suggestion has escaped notice, please PM me or one of the moderators and we'll see that it gets done.  :-X

[spaceboy]

no problem of course PZ - it wasn't urgent, but it'll help organize posts (as you've so nicely done already)

[PZ]

Thanks spaceboy!  :)